Two
by MultiFandomSF
Summary: COMPLETE. MSR. 'She pauses for a moment, eyes wide and glorious in their splendor, radiant in something he can’t quite pinpoint and never has.' Please R n' R!
1. Apart

_"Two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one..."_

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Title: Two

Author: Me!

Rating: PG or K or whatever. Tame save for great angst.

Time: Post-colonization. Set kind of after my other two fics. Please read them and RR

Characters: Mainly Scully perspective, Mulder, Skinner

Author's Note: At this point, I'm 9 episodes through season 5. I know the general outline of all seasons, arcs, and the end of the series. I do not know everything. Therefore, I apologize if my characterization sucks or the like. I really appreciate constructive criticism.

This fic will be composed of a series of vignettes I'll write when I feel up to it. My other two fics definitely fall into this story.

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A Part

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Amidst the bleakness of colonization, vibrancy exists, moves, tries to survive. Survivors find each other…or don't. Everyone dies, but these days, most die young or don't die at all.

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Scully gasps as she wakes. The settings are unfamiliar, an abrupt wake up call every morning as she tries to remember where they are. Sometimes she doesn't remember, but Mulder is always besides her, his warmth close and reassuring. She has something to hold on to, and she is ever grateful.

"Mulder?"

He sits straight up, his head coming to a crashing halt as it collides with the cave ceiling. "I've got to stop doing that," he groans, as she starts to laugh. She forgets what's funny before too long.

"You won't have to deal with this much longer; we're close to the mountain complex. If it hasn't been stripped or destroyed, we'll have a chance."

He says nothing, but she can tell he is nodding in the darkness.

* * *

They reach the complex in the early evening; the sun has just set beneath the mountains, and the trees have only begun to echo alien shapes across the ground. When winter comes, they'll be able to survive.

Most of the complex is completely intact. Medical equipment abounds, and Scully tends to other's injuries—Landon's broken arm, Skinner's minor concussion, Aria's twisted ankle, etcetera, etcetera.

Everything appears perfect. There is surveillance equipment, stocked in an old closet. It still works.

Better yet, there is a freezer. Large, too. They've found that heat signatures make them vulnerable, detectable. The equipment is what any community needs to survive.

The next morning, Mulder, Frank and Emily scout the town that lies below the valley they've settled in. It's abandoned, but there are multiple roads leading in and out. Anyone looking for a haven could be led there, and their community could attempt to contact them. This is what the surveillance will be for.

Donna Marks says they need a schedule. She has these quirks, and Scully could diagnose her mental illness if anyone cared. Everyone has a problem now, a complex or a phobia, something that could strike in any unknown situation. Donna is not unique. She's better than most of them.

So they create a plan, schedule, dole out jobs and responsibilities to get them on their feet. Every two days, roughly three people will journey to the town, check surveillance, run tests and monitor the air for changes that could alert them to imminent doom. Everyone will go at some point. Others will hunt, explore the complex, work on detection systems and things they don't know they need.

The mountain air is brisk and lovely, and Scully thinks Mulder was right about the country. She throws her head back and laughs, and feels better. Mulder catches her and in the bright sunset holds her, smothers her, and she smiles as he kisses her because she is tired of feeling hopeless, so tired of drowning. For a moment, they both forget that they are both dead, and get lost in the cool air and warm breath.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. EEEEEEEEEEEEE. EEEEEEEEEEE.

The alarm sounds, and they are plunged into chaos. Only three short notes are their clue that something is wrong. Surveillance has caught something, has sighted something in the sky! Those in the town should be running through the hills, trying to make it back to the complex before the ship gets to close. The air is rumbling and there is lightning searing their skin as they climb towards the valley, towards salvation in a hell of frost and darkness.

_It had to be Mulder in the group, this time._ But Scully knows better, and is helping Aria limp towards the lower levels, towards the freezer where everyone should be by now. The group, the three from the town, aren't back yet.

The alarm sounds only three times, because Skinner worried that it the noise could be picked up by approaching ships.

Once in the freezer, the 63 people are to shut up, the lights are to be turned off. The group knows what to do.

A part of Scully dies there, in the cold and in the dark. Her ears are ringing, and she can't hear anyone breathing, not even herself. There is no one beside her, no warmth in the room. Something crawls over face, and she resists the urge to scream. If anyone exists besides her, she wouldn't want to kill them. She would never want that.

It is cold and it is dark, and she is all alone. Mulder is gone, Mulder is gone, and she can't stop repeating it in her head. The silence is deafening, and she is screaming in her own head, driving herself mad, because there is no one but her there, and she can't breathe by herself when she can't understand the world around her. Blind and alone and freezing, she feels her brain shutting down. Mulder is gone, Mulder is gone. She only becomes aware that she is still standing when she falls, and hits her head against the frosty floor without bracing herself. A part of Scully dies in the freezer, the part that she's used for so many years to tell herself that she will be fine, that he will be fine, that everything will be fine. Overuse, and in a moment of supreme terror, a part of her snaps and dies.

And suddenly, the light is blinding, and a dark shadow is in the door. Two more, and the darkness is all consuming again.

"SCULLY. SCULLY. DANA. Oh my God, Scully, breathe." Mulder hisses frantically, and she realizes she's been holding her breathe. Forgot to breathe. For a moment, it strikes her that she's probably seen that on a death certificate before. She probably thought it was funny.

In Mulder's strong arms, Scully is wheezing, remembering the concept of air and of existence. He's whispering that he loves her, and she's clinging to his neck trying not to cry.

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The next afternoon, a group of them sit in the mess, eating freeze dried sandwiches, thinking of that instant and wondering about the coming hours. Most are engaged in some sort of small talk, whether it be recounting the previous days ordeal, how they survived, or playing a word game because they've lost everything else.

As she and Mulder leave to pack for an excursion, she overhears a conversation in low, boasting tones.

"—it was so close though, we almost lost him. I've got nothing against him personally—" he gestures and smiles, states something she can't quite catch, "beyond the usual…" He gets cut off, as the man next to him starts a finishes the story.

"Anyhow, Mulder nearly fell down the slope. If he had only broken something, we could've left him, I mean, seriously! He isn't doing anything special or anything, and maybe then at least I might have had a chance with _her_—"

Her face burns and a part of her drowns itself in anger and defiance. They have no right, none at all. This is the moment when Scully finally lets a piece of her mind hate the human race. They are to blame for this mess of a world of a life. Those people, them, they are at fault. A piece of her will never forgive anyone.

At least she has something tangible to fight again.

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Six months pass before the sirens sound again. Many times Scully or Mulder have taken shifts in the town, and there have been no aliens, no invaders. Sometimes people. No aliens.

The sirens are sounding, and Mulder is in the town. She allows herself a fervent "GODDAMMIT," even though she knows God will most likely damn nothing except her.

Someone grabs her arm and is practically dragging her to the freezer. It's a hard job, something Mulder must have told a friend to do if he wasn't there. Make sure Scully doesn't do something stupid. She can see him in her mind's eye, as if Mulder is imparting wisdom, and some Mulder protégé and worshipper is nodding solemnly.

The person she cannot name is holding her hand in the freezer. He is not Mulder, but at least she can concentrate on The Hand, and not on the lack of door silhouettes.

They are in the room a half hour before the door opens. Only two shadows enter. No one finds Scully in the darkness except whispers.

The door opens again, only this time, people are leaving. The Hand disintegrates in hers, and the mystery person follows the others out.

"Mulder?" She whispers, mouths, as in a nightmare. Something is chasing you, and all you can do is croak when you need to scream.

Scully? She doesn't hear him, doesn't hear her name shouted towards her. Scully is waiting for her name for someone to whisk her away. Something can't have happened.

Oh, but it can.

"Scully?"

It's only Skinner.

But she's never seen him cry before.

It isn't anything emotional; a stoic, worn face, except for the tears that have tracked their way down his cheeks. He looks exactly the same without them.

"We…we were in the town Dana, we sounded the sirens and were running out of the building. But the…the vibrations of the ship must have affected the structure of the building, it collapsed on us. We barely made it out on time." He clears his throat staring at her cold blue eyes. Defiant, after all this time.

"He wasn't with us. We turned to go back in the building, there was a shot—we think his gun must have discharged when he fell—he was lying there—" his voice cracks now, just a bit, only she felt it in his calm voice—"His eyes were open. There was blood everywhere. We couldn't stay." Skinner's voice is gruff now, and the silence is closing in on Scully, poor Scully, standing there believing and unbelieving, as she always has.

"I'm sorry."

Scully sees the other man then, the one at the lunch table where she re-learned what the word unforgivable meant.

"You're sorry," she hisses, moving closer until she is face to face with him.

"You're sorry. You left him there! God damn it, you left him there to die! HE ISN'T DEAD! He can't be! You left him there and if he hasn't frozen to death, they've found him and are subjecting him to everything all over again!"

She screaming at him, and she can see the pain in Skinner's face. Scully's hurting him, but in that instant, she doesn't care.

Skinner doesn't find her until late the next morning. He questions several people fruitlessly; all say that she said that she was "Fine."

So now he's frantic, because he knows she isn't. He finds her in the med lab, facing a table filled with blood samples.

"Scully." She faces him, impassive.

"Scully, please, talk to me—" He stops mid-sentence, because she looks so pale in the basement light, because her blue eyes look like ice, and she isn't really listening.

There is nothing else for him to say, so Skinner leaves. When he does, Scully's mask breaks, and she collapses, sobbing, to the floor. Everything is over.

Huddled in a corner, she closes her eyes. She forgets that anyone else exists, and is almost able to forget how to breathe.

In the hospital wing, Skinner sits in a chair by her beside. Someone found her passed out, and he made an official call that she wasn't to be left out of sight. Skinner sits, and wonders how a person copes when their life is gone.

Scully wakes up screaming, screaming "Mulder!" over and over again, before dissolving into sobs when Skinner tries to hold her down, to keep her calm. He tells her he isn't here. Mulder's gone Scully he says. They sound like only words to her.

Scully looks at Skinner with pained, frightened eyes as he tries to face her with something she doesn't know. A part of her gets up and runs away then, after Mulder, after certainty, after the world that has been stolen from her. That part looks back at Skinner sitting by her bedside, and her eyes tell him how sorry she is- how ashamed and how lost- before she dashes away, away from attackers she has never been able to see. The majority of her being runs away that night, chasing all she has fought for and cannot live without, if only to die trying.

In spirit, she leaves that night. Her physical body remains, only to seek her mind in the morning.

A part of her won't ever give up.


	2. Blank Slate

A/N- Part 2 is up. I'd really, really, really appreciate reviews. I don't know how long I can continue the story if I can't get a feel if people actually like it or hate it (but please, constructive criticism only:) ). At the very least, I have one more chapter written besides this one, and I'll post it soon if I get numerous (hah) reviews, or post it later in a last ditch attempt to bring some in some interest. Thank you!

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Blank Slate

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Later on, Mulder would think of the experience and contemplate just how strange it was, strange that every passing day did not make it easier to accept reality, but harder.

In past mornings, when he greeted the day to the best of his abilities, he thought first of Scully, and remembered where he was. He would remember she was next to him, and not in the next motel room.

So when he woke up with a throbbing headache, lying on the floor, Mulder's first thought was of what case he was on, what monster of the week or sympathizer had gone crazy on him, and how long it had been since he was knocked out.

This was not the case.

Mulder rubbed his aching head, and thought he had heard sirens. He remembered…sirens. Before that, a crashing sound, seeing himself under the roof and under the beams. A gunshot. Sound the sirens. Surveillance told them of ships. Grey hull against a gloomy horizon. Rain.

He sat up abruptly as his train of thoughts became clear. Looking around wildly, he had no idea where he was. Looking at his wrist, he lamented the loss of yet another piece of reality—his watch was broken, and the days counter hopelessly scrambled. How long, where, how, who, whatever questions Mulder needed to ask, he had no where to start.

And if he was in another state, another country, how would he find his way back? How would he find Scully, how would he contact the base?

The room was brown and dirty, with faded peeling wallpaper from another era. The carpet was brown shag, something Mulder was fairly sure should have been outlawed at some point. Sunlight filtered in through a polluted window, illuminating the dusty air, and from his vantage point, Mulder could see a door, perhaps the front door. The road to escape, where hopefully he would discover the house was actually at the base of the mountain he needed to climb. Hah, yeah right.

With his head still reeling, he decided to stay sitting. Abduction? Depending on where he was, it was certain. But why was he here? Was this a way station, a joke, them playing with his mind? Perhaps this was slavery; this dirty house was where his mind was to finish out the rest of its days. If it wasn't, the entire situation made no sense. Unless he was bugged with some sort of betrayal, waiting for a person or event to occur, there was no reason for his abandonment. He could not remember what had happened. He tried, but nothing came.

When he turned his head and saw the ornery, repulsive looking woman in the next room, watching soaps of all things, all he could do was start to laugh, a chuckle more like, because this had to be one of the most bizarre situations he had ever been in.

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TBC? If so, how soon? You tell me. 


	3. Circles, Cycles, Begin Again, Never End

A/N: Back tracking in this chapter.

Please review!

Thank you to Firelight1 for reviewing. Thanks for reading and useful comments!

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Circles, Cycles, They Begin Again but Do Not End

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He had disappeared again, a long time ago. Mulder had done that too many times, and sent her over the edge, alone, too many times. She always forgave him.

On that particular time, Scully had been desperate, desperate for anyone or anything thing to help her. So desperate, and she had found Skinner.

He had been angry initially, at her or the general situation, she was never sure. Beneath his stifled fury, the kind only his voice could convey, she knew he would help. If he could do something, Skinner would. Scully argued, Scully defended Mulder (as she always had, when the situation warranted), Scully planned, and eventually Skinner agreed. He always did.

An investigation was opened, under a different file, and random agents were assigned to the case. They were young, inexperienced, but as far as Skinner could tell, not watched by anyone deemed important. He took a vacation, jumped several planes to the Midwest, and there, monitored the agents and collaborated with them out of the goodness of his heart. When their reports on finding nothing involved the Assistant Director, hopefully the objective would have been achieved, and perpetrators would be vanishing in a cloud of dust and falsity.

Scully assisted on the side, taking the agents' data and conducting her own research in a community college. Vials of blood, latex gloves, calculations and comparison. She hadn't felt important in a long time. Allowed to get lost in something other than herself; the feeling was exhilarating. Staying focused, not feeling, was exhilarating.

When her anonymous tip led the newbie agents to an empty warehouse, clichéd in Scully's mind at the time, they found blood, tracks from a body dragged and then taken. Evidence of intense heat, light, and the door appeared to have been nearly ripped from its hinges. There was far too much blood. They found tracks, evidence that there had been tables and equipment in the room for a long time. Scully knew they had stayed in the town for too long.

In the daytime, when the scene was less empty, Dana Scully came to survey the damage for herself. There were plenty of crowds; a small town is filled with small people, and here especially, there was nothing better to do than visit a crime scene or someone else's tragedy.

D.N.A. tests had confirmed the blood's identity. Skinner had confirmed the classic abduction scenario. Scully herself did not want to believe the amount of blood on the floor, but the agents confirmed the critical loss. They confirmed everything.

She knew, as she had known since she met Mulder, that things confirmed can be falsified. Unfortunately, over time, she'd discovered the ultimate paradox: ideas at first glance, even in the most obscure or unlikely light, are often right.

In that moment, there were no other avenues to be followed. The sunlight would fade, the road would seem longer in the afternoon shadows, and Scully would be alone with her thoughts again. She would have no one to run with, no one to run to. Where to?

Anger, denial, bargaining. Depression. Testing, acceptance. The problem was—as much as she had acted otherwise in other parts of her life with other people—Scully had never found acceptance easily.

In that moment, someone in a dark window takes a picture. Aspiring film student, the answer and cause, or just a bored, lonely person, they would never know. They never knew anything at all.

Her eyes are shining, staring inward, in a fear stricken expression with a gasping mouth threatening a sob.

(she puts on her mask but a moment later)

The photo that they take of her shows the world is ending.

And someone, somewhere, years and years later, takes the picture out and remembers what they're fighting for.

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Sorry for short chapters...my muse gets tired easily. Please review, TBC.


	4. Under the Stairs

_Some find faith before they die…

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_

Under the Stairs

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Sunlight played off the echoes in the old house, and reality seemed as distant as the day the world ended. Mulder saw the bouncing shadows and with no idea of where he was, proceeded to observe and speak sparingly.

The woman in the next room, who was now staring at Mulder with a dispassionate look of scrutiny, was most likely middle aged, but with her scrunched up face and overweight physique, she had seen better days many days ago. When she spoke, one arm swinging over the side of dirty beige couch, her voice was gravely, whiny. She said her name was Angela.

"I don't know who you're or where you're from, this is my house, not theirs. You understand? My house, not yours or theirs or your friends, if you've got any. You hear me?"

Angela scrunched up her face at him, as she spoke, and Mulder had the urge to laugh, despite the sad reality of the situation.

"Yeah, I understand."

"Good."

An awkward silence followed, as they stared at each other. Angela with her scrutinizing tiny eyes, and Mulder with a calm, almost happily bewildered stance.

"So, where exactly did you find me? How did you bring me here?" He said, attempting to make sense out of the situation.

Face relaxing, she said, slightly less suspiciously: "You were miles down the road, an old town. You were jus' lyin' there. I needed supplies. At the very least, you'd get taken 'stead of me. They came for you, probably took you, but if I've got you, they won't take me."

Unsure of how to reply, Mulder simply gave an, "Ah." But she looked at him piercingly again.

"You can't leave."

"Excuse me?"

"I won' let you. I won' tell you how to get back, it's just desert 'round here. You're stayin'. They won't take me. They get closer every time. It's 'sa atmosphere, they know everyone's where everyone can breathe. They close in on those areas. They're coming for me."

Seeing no immediate threat, Mulder considered his options. Argue, or just talk. Talking would suffice.

"Come back with me then, we have a settlement near the town. There's about 80 of us, plenty of room for you, and anyone you might know. We have medicine, food—we can even shut down power entirely to reduce possibilities of detection—"

"I'M NOT GOIN' THERE. You can't shut down the power. YOU'RE STAYIN' HERE."

She was hollering at Mulder, and had now taken up a defensive stance, planted directly in front of Mulder, staring eye to eye with him.

"You got to keep the lights on, they only come in the dark. It's the burning mystery, 's I guess, they're not here in the lights. I've got all the lights, there's plenty of gas in town. You're gonna stay here till the lights burn out and then they'll take you instead a' me."

Mulder had still not lost his head and was profiling her, as best he could, but was unfortunately unable to conjure any knowledge save for an image of Duane Barry and a haunted voice on his answering machine.

He could see the picture of Scully, Scully gagged and terrified in the trunk of a car, when Angela pulled out the gun from the other room.

Moving quickly towards her, he forgot that she could be trigger happy. A bullet whizzed by his left shoulder, and he froze, no longer advancing, no longer calm and impassive.

"I was a great shooter in my day man. I was great one day." Smiling, Angela held the gun towards him, yellowed teeth grinning at his confusion and inability to do anything.

"You'll be safe here. I promise. I got 'dis, and I got the lights. I got you, and as long as I got you, I'm safe. You'll be safe here, I promise."

She smiled sweetly, and lowered the gun. Turned her back to him, and then beckoned him follow her to the other room. There were no choices, no refusal or acceptance. He just followed. Mulder wondered where he was and thought maybe this was hell. Perhaps a purgatory. He had never believed that though.

He just followed her.

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Review por favor?

Disclaimer I haven't included so far: Only the words and how I put them together are mine. Save for Angela and names I've made up, I do not own the brilliance that is: The X-Files.

Italicized stuff usually lyrics. So far, I've used Filter and Interpol lyrics.

A/N- Thanks for reviewing Firelight, I'm glad you like it! We'll get more Mulder, don't worry. I just have an easier time writing Scully, so it takes me more time to put these short (sorry :) )chapters together.


	5. Closer

Closer

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Scully spent her days climbing over rubble, looking for everything that calmed her and smothered her at the same time. Without Mulder, she couldn't breathe for want of a reason. With Mulder, she couldn't breathe because they were so damaged, because he took his guilt and her wounds and absorbed them, and she absorbed everything about him, and it became just one huge gaping hole that grew bigger every time he touched her.

The day after Skinner had told her Mulder was dead, Scully had climbed down to the old town fast, alone, and desperate. Skinner had followed her, but he was slow, and she had no qualms about gashed hands and bloody injury. She arrived at the bottom of the mountain angry and alive, bleeding from cuts accumulated and scars reanimated.

When Skinner arrived, he narrowly missed his "hello" greeting: a clenched fist hurled towards his face with lightning fury. He grabbed her by the arms and shook her; he was on her side, she couldn't forget that. "Don't forget that Scully," and she laughed, a cold deranged laugh, because she'd been to the building, and thus urged Skinner forward with a motion of her hand. She said nothing.

There was blood on the floor. There was also a bullet. Far away from the scene, an un-bloodied bullet existed. But there was little blood, from a gash in the side perhaps, not too deep.

"He's not dead."

"I'm sorry."

"Then help me find him."

Mulder had been abducted, by who Scully did not know. By aliens, he had either been experimented on—being him it would have been just for fun of course—or enslaved, dead already. By someone else…she had no idea where to start. But abduction by the invaders had never dropped Mulder someplace she couldn't find. It had never been in another country, a place she wouldn't find him. Perhaps then, Scully surmised, he had been left somewhere near her.

They found a map in an old general store near the outskirts of town. It was personalized, with the names of everyone living there labeled on the houses and stores. The Harpers a few miles out into the desert, everyone else in the town with their shops and mobile homes.

Skinner went around the shop, looking for supplies, maybe there was fuel, maybe even a Twinkie. He found a smear of blood by the pantry, as if someone had been laid down momentarily and then dragged again to an undisclosed location.

There was no gasoline or alternative fuel left in the shop. There was no one left in the town. This was not the most complicated case Scully had ever been assigned to.

After spending so much time with Mulder and his "I'm never wrong" instincts, Scully had picked up hunches of her own. Now, she pondered the situation, and decided that he had been abducted by someone human, someone living near here. There was no one in the town, they knew that much.

But she decided, against Skinner's best judgment, they should stay there overnight. She knew, once the sun went down, they would see a blazing house on the horizon, and that they would find Mulder there.

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A/N: Sorry for short chapters. Not much time to write. I have other chapters already in progress, so don't worry. But I'd really like reviews. PLEASE. I didn't mean for this story to have one specific plot to it, but I realized after I'd written the first part I basically set it up for one direction. What do you think? How's my driving? 


	6. Nights with the Lights On

Nights with the Lights On

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Mulder dreams of shadows and figures, places he has been and places forgotten. Scully and Samantha are the same sometimes—lost in the sunlight that is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. He tries to shout, to scream, and he can't; not only is his voice gone, but he can't decide whose name to use. He decides on Scully, because it seems to him that it's Samantha's fault that he is where he is right now. And then he wakes with a start, because the lights are bright, and the haze has made him think horrible things.

He moves slowly, as if he has no control. Maybe he doesn't. After a few days, Mulder begins to wonder if he's being drugged. He tries to stop eating, to stop drinking, to watch Angela prepare his food. Somehow, he never catches her, but he can no longer find the strength to go outside, or go towards life or anything past the dream state. Sometimes, waking, Mulder shouts obscenities at her, but she is always there, and always laughs at him. They watch soaps together, and she tells stories and he laughs. He doesn't want to, but they're so silly, so silly, and the part that used to tell him to run has fallen asleep.

The part of him who used to tell him to run, fast and far away, sleeps when the lights are on. The darkness is what brings the terror, the unnamed fear of the unknown, death, and slavery. Darkness has never been so needed or wanted by Mulder than now.

Two weeks after Skinner told Dana Scully Fox Mulder was dead, Mulder realizes Angela's right. It is always dark when the aliens come, when they are chased or are chasing the truth. The truth is always found or fleetingly seen with flashlights, clever illumination, danger or darkness. They are never there in the plain daylight, the afternoon warmth or heat. They find their prey by the small pinpricks of flashlight light, he guesses. They must know Angela is here, but there is no darkness in her house to dwell in. She has lights everywhere. Every room, every corner is brightly lit. There is no darkness. Not in a closet, not in sleep. Mulder dreams all the time, and there is never darkness. There is simply sunlight; Scully or Samantha growing paler in it as they try to find him while Mulder seeks them in turn.

After two and a half weeks, Mulder feels sorry for Angela. He realizes he is sympathizing with his captor, realizes this is a psychological condition, but doesn't care. Angela has spent too much time in these lights, and there is no longer darkness in her mind. Just mysteries that have had light shed on them. Mysteries with no answers, and she's been unfortunate enough to see this. Mysteries and unknowns and there is no hope or idea, just what she knows. It's driven her insane, and the idea that humanity needs the darkness as much as terror is slowly doing the same to him.

The unknowns are slowly losing coherence, clarity losing its shape to frayed edges and blurred vision. Mulder doesn't know what he needs to know anymore, it has simply blended into a cloud of anxiety and fear, and he holds on desperately to that fear. He doesn't want to forget—forget Scully or Samantha, Skinner or the X-Files, abduction or what they're running from. He remembers Scully in the freezer, the first alarm, her red hair glinting in the darkness, and the fear he felt there keeps him alive now. He doesn't want to forget in the haze of drugs why he needs to leave. He doesn't remember much. Angela's trying hard, but he's trying as hard as he can.

After a nearly a month in captivity—he guesses, because he doesn't know—Mulder dreams of darkness. It is simply darkness. No one is there but him and blackness—blackness so dark that he cannot see his hands in front of him. For the first time in two weeks, Mulder feels relief, and laughs loudly. Laughing at the darkness, because it is cool, dark and better than anything, Mulder feels better than he has in decades.

Then he hears the shrill, anguished scream, Angela's scream, and realizes he isn't dreaming.

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Thank you firelight, for being my one reviewer. I'm glad you're enjoying it :) 


	7. Effect

Effect

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They saw the blazing house as soon as the sun set, but common sense held them back. The house was far away, the night dark, the town unaware of their whereabouts. People would worry.

Skinner and Scully climbed up the slope, towards the valley that would be pitch-black by now. They weren't supposed to leave the lights on past sunset, as to avoid detection. They reached cooler and cooler air and then the valley of darkness.

Morning brought a new crisis, which delayed them further. Scully was inwardly furious, taking her hopelessness and turning it into rage—something she could use. There had been an accident, one of the two qualified doctors had gone into a coma, and six others had severe injuries. They needed her to stay there, to assist, to keep these people from dying.

And she did. She did for two and a half weeks, because they would not let her go. So Scully stayed by their bedsides for hours without sleep, because, dammit, if they were sacrificing Mulder for the seven—the seven were all going to live.

After two of those weeks, she was near breakdown whenever spoken to. People had been speaking soothingly to Dana, as if she were a child. People were acting like Dana wasn't a capable adult, when here she was, keeping seven people from dying. She felt like every day was a lifetime too long, and they were telling her everything was fine.

They told Scully that Mulder was probably fine, just like she would be fine, and everything had always been fine before the end. Mulder had to be fine if someone had bothered to take him in, to rescue him. And she could do nothing to prove her sanity, to prove she was right, because after all, it was simply a feeling that something was horribly wrong. It had always been that way, she thought with a smirk, Mulder had a feeling; it was right, they didn't believe him.

After two and a half weeks, and they still hadn't let her find him, people in the settlement would find her in the infirmary and would reassure her with fake smiles. And finally she lashed out. Someone was telling her that Mulder would probably show up at their doorstep any day now and Scully snapped. Six of the seven people were healthy, and the doctor was out of the coma in a stable condition, and they still believed that Mulder was fine after two weeks in nowhere and that she would sit happily doing nothing.

Scully screamed at anyone who tried to comfort her, because the entire situation was utterly stupid and idiotic now. The people around her were incapable and she couldn't believe that they would expect her to sit there and wait for Mulder to come to her. He isn't coming and she knows it. Skinner comes and she unleashes more anger on him. But unlike the others, he stays and he listens. Skinner understands beneath his calm demeanor, one can see it in his eyes. She has and always will be grateful for that.

When she has stopped her tirade, he grabs her and holds her tightly, and tells her that they're going to find him. The fire in her eyes dissolves and she cries because it feels so good to have someone on her side—a friend, just a friend, who sincerely believes in her and does not try to be anything more or less.

In a red dawn the following morning, a party of five leaves the settlement. They have supplies for a short stakeout, in addition to those to help Mulder if he is injured. The house is an hour from the town outskirts. If they're lucky, they can make it back in a day, two if something goes wrong.

In mid afternoon, they arrive. They quickly decide not to ring the doorbell.

A woman sees them in plain sight and fires at them through a window. A bullet whizzes past Rex's head, and they sprint for cover behind a shed in the dusty yard. They didn't look like aliens, they didn't even have their guns drawn, but the woman fires at them with terror and screams that "they won't be taking her."

Later on, they have moved next to a window without her noticing. They can see Mulder—he is face-down, disheveled and unmoving. Scully breathes a sigh of relief when he does move. Unfortunately it is only to eat something unidentifiable, before he lays down again, exhausted and sickly. He looks dead and beaten. Mulder's face is blank and pale, and somehow he seems not to have slept in days.

The plan is simple. Keep a close eye on where the woman is, when she seems to be farther away, break through a window/door and grab Mulder. Run for the shed while the others lay down cover fire and attempt to pacify/disarm the woman. Stay in the brightly lit house for the night, tend to Mulder, leave at dawn the next morning. Simple.

But then, an hour past sunset, the blaze is extinguished, and they hear laughing inside. Scully gasps, because it sounds like Mulder, and he sounds like he has finally succumbed to the forces of madness that have always plagued them. She is terrified, because Mulder's laugh sounds like that of death.

Then there is a scream, the laughing stops, and the house is still pitch black. Scully begins to run towards the side door. It doesn't matter where the vile woman is, because she thinks that if she doesn't get to Mulder now, everything will end.

* * *

TBC. Sorry for the wait, it took me a while to get this chapter where it is. I still have to write the next chapter, so it may take a little while longer. Meanwhile, I'm thinking this fic will probably end in the next 2 ch., but it will have follow-ups—since I meant this fic to be a series of unrelated/slightly unrelated vignettes in the first place.

Thank you to kestra—Yaa! Another reader! Very glad you're enjoying it.

FireLight1- Thanks for continued reading, your reviews mean a lot.


	8. Chaos

**Chaos**

* * *

The window shatters as Scully crashes against it, sending shards into her face and hair, and littering the surrounding ground. The screaming subsides for a moment, the harsh rasping halting—and then beginning anew, in rage.

It is dark, there is no moon, no light, only stars and dull reflections, and the group has been spurred into action. They have no idea where the woman, Angela, is, but her screaming is growing in intensity, and it sounds like she is shouting words.

"Mulder! Mulder?" Scully shouts, gun extended, sweeping the hallways in the darkened conditions. She can't see anything, but the gun in her hand and his name escaping her lips is familiar and comforting. Someone could be directly in front of her, and she would not see them.

Blind faith is her ally now, just as it always has been. She's shouting his name, voice hoarse and defiant, listening to Angela babble in incoherent shrieks.

Don't you take him! Don't you take him!

There are pounding footsteps on the floor, and no one can determine who they belong to. The woman, or a friend, no one knows where anyone is anymore. Scully is depending on an act of God to illuminate Mulder or point her gun towards the right person.

"Scully?"

It sounds like Mulder, and she turns, runs into a wall. "MULDER! Where are you?"

"Scully, the woman's armed! Stay where you are! We need to regroup, she won't shoot him!"

No one hears Skinner clearly, everyone is still panicked and running in different directions. She thinks she must have hallucinated Mulder; there are sounds of scuffling and running, with the ever present babbling rage of Angela, the chattering teeth and the harsh breathing. Most cannot hear anything beyond the pounding of their own heart.

Running footsteps, they come closer, and then it sounds like they have faded away. But now there are noises above them, ground level or upstairs? Which floor? Where are you? Hello?

Gunfire, and everyone pauses for a moment before running in another direction. The moon comes out of a cloud for a moment, and Skinner sees the wall before he collides with it.

Scully passes Rex with a bloody nose, and neither of them realize the other was near. Save for Scully and Skinner, the group is no longer looking for Mulder. They're trying to find a corner where they can huddle up and die, or at least see the floor in front of them.

"Scully?" A small, hopeful voice mumbles. Mulder is drugged, but he sounds so alive. He thinks this is a game, a horrible game, and he doesn't want Angela or Scully hurt. He doesn't want anyone to die. Put the guns away, he wants to say, don't shoot Angela, don't shoot Angela. But the words only come out as, "Scully?" over and over again, and he sounds like a little child on a loop.

"Mulder?" She breathes, hopeful, because she can see half of his face illuminated, by a door frame. He is standing?

"I'm here Scully." Half of his face smiles, but he does not move. 'Oh God, Mulder, you're so drugged,' she thinks with despair, and begins to cross the room. Skinner shouts, the house goes silent, and she freezes. Then there is an explosion of noise and the moon escapes its captor, "DON'T TAKE HIM YOU WON' TAKE HIM GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY…!"

Scully can see her in another doorway, gun pointed into the darkness. From Angela's vantage point, everything is still in darkness; she can't see where the gun is pointed.

And a part of Scully screams at herself: this in not the F.B.I., this is not a normal hostage situation, this is not by the book, Mulder is drugged! But she cannot listen and her brain does not comply, and she shouts, voice booming over everything, "PUT THE GUN DOWN. WE ARE NOT GOING TO HURT YOU, I REPEAT, PUT THE GUN DOWN!"

Angela whimpers and does not turn to face the origin of Scully's voice. The moon moves, and Scully can't see Angela's gun anymore, just a triangle of illuminated faces.

Angela sounds heartbroken and afraid, and she half screams half whispers, "You turned off the lights, oh you turned off the lights. Oh no, oh no, go away, they're going to come, they're coming…oh God…"

Her voice trails off, and Scully's voice cuts through the dense silence:

"Put the gun down. No one's coming. They're not here. Put the gun down."

But Angela switches moods again, and again the explosion of sound, like a shot, and she is shrieking again that the lights are off, and it's their fault…everything is their fault.

Ba-bang. The shots are fired in slow motion, and Scully can see the way her gun moves in her closed eyes, because she has seen its power so many times in many situations. The gun moves, click, a shell drops, and the house is utterly silent save for the deafening noise of air displacement and inflicted death.

She hears herself screaming, she's screaming NO in prolonged terror as two thuds sound.

The house is silent, and the moon is back.

The world ends again.

And suddenly, consciousness returns to Mulder in a burst of color and sound and thought. He hears his name shouted in anguish and sees colors he has never seen before, echoed in the pale moonlight and in the light bouncing off or Scully's pretty red hair. There's a bald head bouncing somewhere back there, as knees hit the ground and hands hit his chest.

"Scully?"

"Mulder, oh Mulder, you're going to be fine, oh my God, Mulder you're going to be fine—" she sobs, does she know she's sobbing? She's comforting him, why, why, why.

Scully is sobbing and trying to tell Mulder he is fine, she's choking in tears and tries not to let her voice catch. But her voice is faltering and she's lost that F.B.I. tone she had, because she isn't an agent anymore and Scully hasn't been since she fell in love with him.

Mulder is trying to understand what is going on, when suddenly the pain hits him, and he gasps in strangled agony. He remembers where he is and he knows what has happened and he hates that Angela is dead when all she ever deserved was pity and they shot her out of anger and hate and fear. She should've died with pity Scully she should've died in light! Mulder wants to scream but his throat tastes like copper and red.

The light is gone and he is afraid and he's fine and he's afraid in unending symmetry that swirls through his head.

"You're going to be fine Mulder! You're going to be ok," she cries against his head; Scully is cradling him and trying to stop the blood flow at the same time.

"You're going to be fine, you're going to be fine."

It's no more that a whisper now, and there are sounds of others running. Then another explosion in his brain, and he desperately wants her to hear his thoughts because he can't bear to be alone with them anymore.

"You're going to be fine."

We're not fine Scully, we're more insane than we thought we were! We're all going crazy and we can't even see it. We've left the lights on much too long, we're not meant to go without darkness, we can't live this way Scully, we can't live this way. We're not fine, we've left the lights on too long and they control our every move with the fear of darkness, they told us to trust no one and we didn't and we need to—to fight them…we were meant for so much more Scully, so much more.

Everything's going to be OK Mulder. It's going to be fine.

She's sobbing through her tears, It's going to be OK.

It isn't Scully, oh, it isn't, he sobs in his head and in mumbled gasps of breath.

It's going to be fine.

Now everyone who's dying isn't their fault anymore, it's ours, it's all our fault…

It's going to be okay.

Her voice is so far away and blood too black in the darkness, it isn't fine, it will never be.

Her voice is far away, the light is gone, and he's glad, oh how he's glad.

Mulder…Mulder…Mulder…

The darkness closes in, and he's glad, because he isn't going to fear it—no, he won't. Her voice is distant now, and he loves her, but he can't hold on.

Mulder…it's going to be ok…Mulder…

Mulder?

It isn't.

* * *

A/N: Probably 2 more chapters from here. Hope you enjoyed, if you did/didn't, do drop me a review w/ some constructive criticism. Continued thanks to my two reviewers :) ! 


	9. I am a Scavenger

_I am a Scavenger

* * *

_

Darkness echoes across great plains of emptiness, and six people sit in the dense blackness and pretend they don't exist.

One man shot himself in the arm by accident. Rex badly bruised his nose running into a close door. Skinner is tired; he wishes he had been in Washington when the cities shattered apart. Elaine finally stopped sobbing a few hours past.

Mulder's breathing is faint and ragged, barely audible over the distant howls of the wind. The moon hasn't come out in hours, and no one can see the other. They know everyone is in one room, but everyone is separate, physically and mentally.

They stifled the blood flow from Mulder's wound, but he'll die within the day without proper medical supplies. He drifts in and out of consciousness, but feels light and cool in the darkness. He can't remember if he's alive or not.

Scully is sitting on the dirty floor, covered in blood. She cradles Mulder's head in her lap, doing her best to remember he is there, so she won't start pitying herself again. She thinks this must be the most awful place to die.

Everyone is shell-shocked, breathing slowly and staring into the un-seeable space. Sometimes someone sighs or coughs, and despite the situation, no one startles or reciprocates. They don't know how to think anymore.

Scully is trying not to fall asleep—she doesn't want to dream anymore, because the nightmares and dreams always feel more real than reality, and sometimes she can't tell the difference—and Mulder is stirring in his sleep.

He mumbles something; he can't remember where he is anymore. He can't piece the puzzle together, and he needs to remember.

"Shhhh…" murmurs Scully, stroking his hair in the darkness. "Shh…"

And then he whispers in a cracked, hoarse voice:

"…sing to me Scully…"

She nearly stops breathing, because she can't bear to remember that night now. Looking back, it was such a grand, beautiful night, and she remembers thinking, "Only for you Mulder, only for you." But it was such a…cheery thought then, and she can't bear to remember such a life-filled night.

In the darkness, tears begin to course down Scully's face, and she forgets that the others are there.

"Mulder, I can't…please rest Mulder, please go to sleep," she begs, voice breaking, hating every minute he subjects her to the torture of the past.

"Sing anything…so I know you're awake."

He's not listening to her anymore, except in his dreams.

Hot tears are running down Scully's face, and she fruitlessly hopes they haven't dripped onto Mulder.

"…I love it when you sing…"

Scully gasps, trying desperately to stop the wracking sobs that threaten what little respect she has left for herself.

Across the darkened room, the others hear her refrains, sung in a beaten, trembling voice, bouncing through the empty black rooms—

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog…"

A part of Scully dies when she reaches the chorus and can only hear the wind echoing off the silent, broken, and utterly defeated world.

* * *

A/N: Italicized are Interpol lyrics.

If you're following this story, and haven't reviewed (or tried to, and were anonymous and couldn't) please do.

Most likely one more chapter after this, before I switch to working on a couple of separate X-fics.

On a more television related note, I just finished season 6! Yaa! Or not, considering how I've gone through 6 years in less than 5 months. And only 3 more seasons left till withdrawal. Ahh!


	10. Hopes and Fears

**Hopes and Fears

* * *

**

Angela's body disappeared. It was simply gone without reason, no trails of blood, no claw marks in the rotting floor. Only scorches on the walls around her, and the absence of anything at all.

* * *

Two weeks after the incident, Mulder is physically fine, as is everyone in the group that rescued him. He and Scully haven't spoken in a long time, not with words anyways. She's distant and pale, and he thinks that they're all dead.

He's spent a lot of time in their room, lights off, door closed, mind in a different world.

"_Do you ever think…about what life was like…before?"_

After a week, a part of Scully snaps to life again, and she takes Mulder by the arm and leads him away from the camp, out into the mountains.

They sit down next to a lone tree in a green valley, filled with brisk air and open ends. Suddenly he is seized with an inexorable sadness, and he bows his head under the weight of the world, and he starts to say: _Once upon a time we died here, Scully, I can feel it-_ but he gets cut off before the words even enter his mouth.

She kisses him hard, and smothers the grief before it re-covers them both, and before he knows it he is sobbing, gasping for air and she's cradling his head against her chest, clutching him and crying too. Dry wracking sobs emanate from him and shake them both and Scully tries to speak but can't. The emptiness of everything has suffocated them both for a long time.

In between sobs, Scully starts to speak, voice quiet and powerful, reassuring in her broken way. He's always loved her and he hasn't said it in such a long time.

"…there are people to save Mulder, people alive like us…there is so much we can do yet…"

His strangulation subsides and he smiles into her shoulder, smiles because he's tired of feeling like he's dying.

"I know, Scully, I know."

"Shh, everything's going to get better now, I promise…shh."

"We'll make it better, Scully. Somehow…I think we're going to make it."

She chuckles into the top of his head, tears splattering the top of his skull.

"Do you trust me Scully?"

Her eyes brim with tears and she gasps the words, "I do."

"Do you believe me Scully?"

Mulder tackles her on the warm ground, holds her close amidst the desperate hopes and fears that have made them and remade them for so many years.

She pauses for a moment, eyes wide and glorious in their splendor, radiant in something he can't quite pinpoint and never has.

"I believe."

-

fin

-

Thanks to the few, faithful readers I had. I loved having your comments, and hope you liked the ending. Please leave me feedback and check out my other fic, Reality Dreamstates. Thanks again!


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